2024 Commemoration of The Happy Land Social Club Fire
It’s been 34 Years Since that Horrific Morning. Garinagu and Many Others Impacted by this Fire.
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Copyright 2024 by Teofilo Colon Jr for Being Garifuna. All Rights Reserved.
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Bronx, New York – On Monday, March 25th 2024, People gathered in the Bronx to commemorate 34 Years since The Happy Land Social Club Fire.
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Bronx Community Board #6 Presents The 2024 Commemoration of The Happy Land Social Club Fire.
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Bronx Borough President, Miss Vanessa Gibson was present and along with Other Elected Officials and Community Members with ties to the Tragedy spoke about this singular incident.
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Posts about The Happy Land Social Club Fire by Bronx Borough President, Miss Vanessa Gibson. (from Her Instagram Profile)
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By the time, I had gotten to the Happy Land Fire Memorial, (during the 7pm hour), there were only two people there. Mr. Franco Mena, who knew people who perished in the fire, and another man who I did not recognize.
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I noted that there was no mention of a Memorial Mass on the Flyer publicizing this year’s Commemoration.
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I guess with the number of people attending the Memorial increasingly declining over the years, perhaps the organizers felt that there was no need for a Mass.
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Four Years ago (in 2020), I was interviewed on a Podcast which had an Episode about The Happy Land Social Club Fire.
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The Hosts came across my work and invited me on to the Podcast. I came to their attention based on a post about The Happy Land Social Club Fire. The post is below.
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In that post, I wrote as much as I could about each person who died in the Fire and that bit of research intrigued them. I wanted to identify who among the victims were Garifuna.
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I simply wanted to give readers a better understanding of that these individuals were more than anonymous men and women who perished in a Fire.
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For example, my cousin, Juan Carlos Colon Jr, died in the Fire. 18 Years Old. He was an aspiring Filmmaker who was working on a Documentary about The Garifuna Punta Dance at the time. He had gone to The Happy Land Social Club to do Research.
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Juan Jr’s girlfriend, Alba Escoto also died in the Fire. Apparently, their bodies were found in an embrace.
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Also, Juan Carlos Colon Jr was scheduled to go overseas on a class school project a week later.
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Sadly, I didn’t know my cousin, Juan Carlos Colon Jr. Growing up, I spent a lot of time hanging with two of his younger sisters, Julie and Dina, in the 1980s (his father and my father were First Cousins, Juan’s father and mother were also my Godparents) but I had never met him.
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I am haunted by the fact that the Happy Land Social Club Fire robbed me of the chance to get to know him. Forever.
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Well, another year commemorating This tragic event has come and gone. May the souls who perished in the Happy Land Social Club Fire continue to Rest In Peace.
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